World AIDS Day

I lost count of how many times World AIDS Day media coverage informed me that AIDS was first diagnosed two point five decades ago. I was celebrating the first heady years of adulthood back then; until most friends, acquaintances, and familiar faces vanished, that is.

Time slunk by. Along the way, a dear friend with full-blown AIDS moved to his parents' home and died short months later. Relatives and family friends were only told he had cancer. For me that will always epitomize the federal head-in-the-sand ignorance of blocking education beyond "abstinence until marriage."

Barely nine percent of my family now were alive at the beginning, much less old enough to remember reports of "gay pneumonia." Any one of our teens who asks about HIV, AIDS, STDs, or testing has my respect and gets the most factual answers we can give. Even our children know what precautions to take with blood. We can't control with certainty when our loved ones will need to know, so we prepare them as best we can.

AIDS is hardly the first biological plague to decimate humanity, nor will it be the last, but it is ours. What a world.

Tags: AIDS, HIV, World AIDS Day